The Story Behind “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” by Bob Dylan and How It Continued His Series of Farewell Songs

Through the years, Bob Dylan has done many interviews. Some were serious and earnest, while others were hostile and dismissive. You never knew what to expect when the singer sat down with a journalist. When he released Bringing It All Back Home in January 1965, it was a turning point in his career. After expanding the instrumentation on his recordings, the term “folk rock” began to be used to describe the music of Bob Dylan. Half of the album was electric, while the other half was acoustic, causing a firestorm of debate among the contemporary folk community. In July 1965, Dylan brought his rock ‘n’ roll friends to the Newport Folk Festival, further adding to the controversy. Let’s take a look at the story behind “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” by Bob Dylan.

You must leave now, take what you need you think will last

But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun

Crying like a fire in the sun

Look out, the saints are comin’ through

And it’s all over now, baby blue

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The Recording

Dylan recorded “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” several times for the album. On January 13, 1965, he laid down a solo acoustic version. The following day, he recorded a semi-electric version. On January 15, 1965, the master released on the album was captured. It was a very productive day. He also recorded “Maggie’s Farm,” “On the Road Again,” “If You Gotta Go, Go Now,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Gates of Eden,” and “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” When asked about his evolving songwriting style in May 1965, Dylan told the Sheffield University Paper, “The songs I was writing last year, songs like ‘Ballad in Plain D,’ they were what I call one-dimensional songs, but my new songs I’m trying to make more three-dimensional, you know, there’s more symbolism, they’re written on more than one level.”

The highway is for gamblers. Better use your sense

Take what you have gathered from coincidence

The empty-handed painter from your streets

Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets

The sky, too, is folding under you

And it’s all over now, baby blue

Reacting in a “Riotous Way”

Both of Dylan’s previous albums contained “farewell songs.” “Restless Farewell” on The Times They Are a-Changin’ and “It Ain’t Me Babe” on Another Side of Bob Dylan. Many people have speculated about the identity of “Baby Blue.” Dylan never shed any light on that aspect of the song. “Never Say Goodbye” on Planet Waves refers to the song when he sings, Ah, baby, baby, baby blue.

Dylan told SPIN magazine in December 1985, “The first time I played electric before a large group of people was at the Newport Folk Festival, but I had a hit record out, so I don’t know how people expected me to do anything different. I was aware that people were fighting in the audience, but I couldn’t understand it. I was a little embarrassed by the fuss because it was for the wrong reasons. I mean, you can do some really disgusting things in life, and people will let you get away with it. Then you do something that you don’t think is anything more than natural, and people react in that type of riotous way, but I don’t pay too much attention to it.”

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home

Your empty-handed army is all going home

Your lover who just walked out your door

Has taken all his blankets from the floor

The carpet, too, is moving under you

And it’s all over now, baby blue

Folk Rock

In August 1965, Dylan was interviewed by Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston. He spoke more about the recent electric performance at Newport, “I was doing fine, you know, singing and playing my guitar. It was a sure thing. I was getting very bored with that. I couldn’t go out and play like that I was thinking of quitting. I knew what the audience was gonna do. … Your mind just drifts unless you can find some way to get in there and remain totally there. It’s so much of a fight remaining totally there all by yourself. It takes too much. I’m not ready to cut that much out of my life. You can’t have nobody around. You can’t be bothered with anybody else’s world. And I like people. What I’m doing now—it’s a whole other thing. We’re not playing rock music. It’s not a hard sound. These people call it folk rock—if they want to call it that, something that simple, it’s good for selling records. … I’ve heard songs on the radio that have picked it up. I’m not talking about words. It’s a certain feeling, and it’s been on every single record I’ve ever made. That has not changed. I know it hasn’t changed. As far as what I was totally, before, maybe I was pushing it a little then. I’m not pushing things now. I know it. I know very well how to do it. The problem of how I want to play something—I know it in front. I know what I am going to say, what I’m going to do. I don’t have to work it out. The band I work with—they wouldn’t be playing with me if they didn’t play like I want them to.”

Leave your stepping stones behind now. Something calls for you

Forget the dead you’ve left. They will not follow you

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door

Is standing in the clothes that you once wore

Strike another match, go start anew

And it’s all over now, baby blue

Producer Bert Berns gave a copy of Bringing It All Back Home to Van Morrison, who recorded “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” with his band Them in 1966. The Byrds included the song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album three years later.

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